Jericho Road Solutions is 1,000 days old today, and I’m determined to carve out a little time to reflect on the experience and some of the lessons so far.
It’s been an honour to work with ambitious, stubborn, creative leaders in communities across the country, to support them to take action on what matters to them. For me the focus is usually on buildings that are precious to local people but are for some reason ‘stuck’ – through delinquent ownership, unviable renovation costs, conflictual politics, dysfunctional land markets, or any combination of circumstances too risky for the market and too complex for the state.
In my experience, the solutions to these situations can only be devised and led by independent social-mission organisations created by local people. They will not do that alone, but their allies will not be the status-driven ‘regeneration partnerships’ that were such a feature of 1990s/2000s regeneration. Instead they make real action-oriented, risk-sharing relationships that can help deliver the rescue. Sometimes (eg Bognor) that is with the owner or (eg LRFS) potential new owners; sometimes (eg Ancoats, Flimwell) it’s a developer; in Hastings we do joint ventures between social enterprises. The attitude of the local authority always colours the backdrop to our work, where we’re lucky that’s in positive ways!
Helping Ancoats Dispensary Trust (Manchester) to partner with igloo regeneration, win £5m of Heritage Lottery money and appoint Karen Houghton as CEO
Helping Bognor Pier Trust to raise grant funds and work with the current owner to achieve ‘rescue before ruin’
Bognor Regis Pier
Helping Our Yard to take on and redevelop Clitterhouse Farm as a base for community business activity in the context of the massive Brent Cross redevelopment
Helping Friends of London Road Fire Station in their ultimately successful campaign to shift this beautiful building out of long-term delinquent ownership
Helping local residents form Action for St Mary’s Hall in Hastings, seeking to solve the long-standing problem of its dereliction proactively rather than defensively
Helping the civic society and cricket club at Mitcham (the oldest cricket ground in the world) to achieve the security it needs to grow into a year-round whole-community resource
Sometimes, rarely, there is a project where the only ‘problem’ is taking up the challenge by putting the very best practice in place
Helping the owner/developer of 50 acres of woodland at Flimwell with planning permission for an exciting development of 5 houses, 8 studio workspaces, a large educational building and some overnight accommodation, to make this ‘a community project’.
I love to work directly with local people and neighbourhood groups but it is often frustrating when they all face the same problems whose roots are in policy, legislation, funding structures or wider attitudes. That’s why I also work with government, funders, corporates and academics on programmes, organisations and policy that aim to make it easier on the ground. The Jericho Road is a two-way street between neighbourhood and national.
CADO – Community Assets in Difficult Ownership (aka Campaign Against Delinquent Ownership). Highlight and tackle delinquent owners of precious assets. We worked with 10 demonstrator projects providing expert advice, peer learning and small grants to make progress on ‘unsticking’ precious buildings from delinquent ownership. The CADO demonstrators have taught me so much, expanding and embedding my niche but useful knowledge in the field. And, inevitably, I have fallen in love with most of the buildings!
London Road Fire Station
‘Demeter’ is a concept about the relationship between community and private sector partners – that it’s all about Dating, Mating, Translating, and Relating! The Demeter idea was tested through the BRICK Brokers project (funded by HLF, via PRT and Locality) which provided a broker for four pilot projects to support community-private partnerships around heritage buildings.
Hades & Persephone – partners from very different cultures!
In the first year of Jericho Road I was retained by Locality as Associate Director for Community Organising to support the development of the legacy body (then called CoCo, now CO Ltd). During that time I worked with community organisers to develop this CO Scaffolding diagram. The idea was to fit on a single page something that would be recognized by all community organisers regardless of their background or methods. I’ve used it to structure all kinds of workshops and training and find it works well. All comments would be very welcome. The diagram is licensed ‘creative commons’ so anyone can use it.
In the past year Jericho Road has ‘come home to Hastings’. I’m proud that I was able to bring together three social-mission organisations – JRS, Meanwhile Space and White Rock Trust – in the purchase and redevelopment of Rock House. It’s been an incredible journey so far; every day brings new levels of stress and new highs from watching this mad, risky, wonderful project take shape.
Rock House – Endless Possibilities
But just as, for me, Hastings Pier was most important as a symbol of community tenacity, Rock House is the pathfinder for a bigger prize – the development of the Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust with its two pillars:
- buying property into community freehold in the White Rock area, including renovating difficult buildings, and then capping rents to make sure there are always affordable places to live and work.
- promoting community self-build in Ore Valley, using the Organisation Workshop to transform hopeless derelict space, change people’s lives and build new collective community enterprises
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places plains, and the crooked places will be made straight.” Martin Luther King, August 28 1963. Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
Are we any closer to ‘exalting the valleys’ or transforming the Jericho Road? Maybe we’re closer to having the ambition and the tools to do so. If there is one capacity I aim to build in the people I work with it is AGENCY – the ability to believe you can do something. On the 1,000th day I want to pay tribute to all the ‘ordinary’ people who simply wont take no for an answer, and hope that I have helped to build their credibility, capability and above all, confidence.